them, hardly registering the titles, until he spotted one from Emma. It had an attachment alongside. McNab braced himself, then clicked to open. He had planned to offload the kid on the DI, but that no longer looked like a possibility. He would have to keep the contact going himself. He liked Claire. He liked the kid, even if she was a little strange, but he didn’t have the time to spend nursing either of them.
The message read:
I wanted to show you this when you were here, but Mum wouldn’t let me. This is what I dream. This is what I hear .
McNab opened the attachment.
It was a simple drawing of a tree done with a kids’ software program, the branches bare of leaves. Under the roots, a small naked body hung suspended as though in the air. An attempt had been made to draw the genitals, making it a boy.
‘Jesus.’ McNab found himself repulsed by the image.
Below was the message Don’t leave me here alone .
The kid’s sick, he thought. Maybe she was sick before this happened. Claire had seemed frightened, but he’d assumed it was just the effect of the accident. He realised he should have asked more questions, but then he hadn’t been there to interview or interrogate either of them. Claire had asked him to come.
McNab’s first instinct was to ignore the email. If Claire contacted him about it, he could pretend he hadn’t checked his mailbox because of pressure of work. If in doubt, do nothing. A mantra that had served him well in the past.
What the kid was suggesting was nonsense anyway. As far as the investigation was concerned, they had one set of remains. They’d searched the area surrounding the deposition site and turned up nothing else. His job now was to check the records and find out which kids had gone missing a decade ago. Around that time he’d been intent on practising law. Had someone told him he would end up becoming a policeman and working in CID, he would’ve laughed in their face. No money and no respect in police work, he would have said. He’d been right back then. He was right now. At least if he’d become a lawyer he might have been able to help the DI, something at which he was failing spectacularly as a cop.
He selected ‘print’ and went to pick the page up. Only then did it register that the drawing was in colour. The tree printed out in black, the body in a lurid red. The message had been written in purple. All this seemed to reinforce his earlier suspicion that the girl was an attention-seeker. It was a game to her, a way of keeping her mother on her toes, or perhaps punishing her in some way.
McNab had an uncomfortable memory of the variety of ways in which he’d subtly punished his own mother for failing to produce his father. For years he’d secretly convinced himself that his dad was trying to see him and being prevented from doing so. It had taken a long time to register that his father didn’t care that he existed at all.
Claire had been quite adamant about not being married. Angry, even. So who the hell was Nick?
McNab didn’t want to go there.
He screwed up the drawing and went to toss it in the bin then changed his mind and stuck it in his pocket. He had enough to worry about without taking on childcare duties, especially a problem child.
He abandoned his desk and went looking for DC Clark.
‘Hey.’
Janice’s sympathetic look didn’t help. McNab had told everyone he’d been responsible for the assault. It didn’t make any difference. If the boss went down, the team would hold him responsible.
Janice handed him a list. ‘That’s UK-wide. D’you want to extend it to Europe?’
‘Is there anything here that might match?’
‘Hard to say with what we’ve got on the remains so far. In truth, it could be all or none of them.’
‘Better extend it to Europe.’
Barriers had been down for a while, the flux of immigrants from the Eastern Bloc steadily increasing. Rhona had said that a child’s remains didn’t last long above ground, even
The message read:
I wanted to show you this when you were here, but Mum wouldn’t let me. This is what I dream. This is what I hear .
McNab opened the attachment.
It was a simple drawing of a tree done with a kids’ software program, the branches bare of leaves. Under the roots, a small naked body hung suspended as though in the air. An attempt had been made to draw the genitals, making it a boy.
‘Jesus.’ McNab found himself repulsed by the image.
Below was the message Don’t leave me here alone .
The kid’s sick, he thought. Maybe she was sick before this happened. Claire had seemed frightened, but he’d assumed it was just the effect of the accident. He realised he should have asked more questions, but then he hadn’t been there to interview or interrogate either of them. Claire had asked him to come.
McNab’s first instinct was to ignore the email. If Claire contacted him about it, he could pretend he hadn’t checked his mailbox because of pressure of work. If in doubt, do nothing. A mantra that had served him well in the past.
What the kid was suggesting was nonsense anyway. As far as the investigation was concerned, they had one set of remains. They’d searched the area surrounding the deposition site and turned up nothing else. His job now was to check the records and find out which kids had gone missing a decade ago. Around that time he’d been intent on practising law. Had someone told him he would end up becoming a policeman and working in CID, he would’ve laughed in their face. No money and no respect in police work, he would have said. He’d been right back then. He was right now. At least if he’d become a lawyer he might have been able to help the DI, something at which he was failing spectacularly as a cop.
He selected ‘print’ and went to pick the page up. Only then did it register that the drawing was in colour. The tree printed out in black, the body in a lurid red. The message had been written in purple. All this seemed to reinforce his earlier suspicion that the girl was an attention-seeker. It was a game to her, a way of keeping her mother on her toes, or perhaps punishing her in some way.
McNab had an uncomfortable memory of the variety of ways in which he’d subtly punished his own mother for failing to produce his father. For years he’d secretly convinced himself that his dad was trying to see him and being prevented from doing so. It had taken a long time to register that his father didn’t care that he existed at all.
Claire had been quite adamant about not being married. Angry, even. So who the hell was Nick?
McNab didn’t want to go there.
He screwed up the drawing and went to toss it in the bin then changed his mind and stuck it in his pocket. He had enough to worry about without taking on childcare duties, especially a problem child.
He abandoned his desk and went looking for DC Clark.
‘Hey.’
Janice’s sympathetic look didn’t help. McNab had told everyone he’d been responsible for the assault. It didn’t make any difference. If the boss went down, the team would hold him responsible.
Janice handed him a list. ‘That’s UK-wide. D’you want to extend it to Europe?’
‘Is there anything here that might match?’
‘Hard to say with what we’ve got on the remains so far. In truth, it could be all or none of them.’
‘Better extend it to Europe.’
Barriers had been down for a while, the flux of immigrants from the Eastern Bloc steadily increasing. Rhona had said that a child’s remains didn’t last long above ground, even
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